The Tycoon & The Bard

In The Tycoon and the Bard, well-known Scots actor and Burns expert John Cairney tells the story of how the richest man in the world was inspired by Scotland’s greatest poet.

Cairney concentrates on the life of Scottish American industrialist Andrew Carnegie, arguing that the ideas of the romantic Scottish poet Robert Burns formed a strong influence on Carnegie from his early education to the end of his life.

The Tycoon and the Bard shows the connections between these two great Scots, revealing unexpected aspects of each man’s life and drawing out the chain of influence that Burns’ poetry had on Carnegie’s social beliefs about fortune, fate and fairness.